


Promise me, you'll never let me go

by anditwasstinky (thewicked)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble Collection, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Some Humor, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7471722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewicked/pseuds/anditwasstinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes I'll be working on to keep my creative juices flowing.  Mostly Sheith, both pre- and post-Kerberos, and largely Keith-centric.  A lot of romantic hand-holding and shoulder-touching happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 7:22 on a Friday night, D-63 until departure

**Author's Note:**

> This is part writing exercise, part me just wanting to write more Sheith. I'm basing a lot of these off of one of those posts of one-liners people use as flash prompts, but I might pull from other prompt posts, or my own prompts. Also, I don't really know what the ~official word count limit is for vignettes - these are just short fics, because I can't commit myself to anything too long right now! 
> 
> The title comes from the song 'Promise' by Matchbook Romance.

“This one’s on me."

Keith looks at Shiro, a little taken aback.  Before he can say anything, though, Shiro’s already paid the cashier, and he’s taking their tray of burgers off to find a table amid the crowded restaurant.  Keith follows, his eyes not leaving the firm width of Shiro’s shoulders, or the tapered lines of his undercut that terminate at the exposed nape of his neck.  It’s warm, the middle of summer, and Keith is sweating under his black T-shirt.  The smell of grease and frying meat is everywhere, too; Keith knows he’ll still be smelling it hours later, when he’s back in his room, ready to go to sleep.  But as he carefully perches in his seat across from Shiro, who’s smiling at him around a mouthful of french fries, he doesn’t think he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Thank you,” he says, though he realizes it’s a little delayed.

Shiro waves it away.  “It’s fine. It’s not every day we get a chance to get away from the Garrison and eat food that hasn’t been heated up by the Commissary.”  The smile he gives Keith is conspiratorial.  “And we can rest assured that this beef is real.”

Keith makes a face.  He’d really rather not be talking about Commissary food just before he’s about to eat real food.  

Shiro laughs, and Keith jumps when he feels a foot knock against his under the table.  “I’m just joking,” he says, and the way his face is lit up makes Keith’s heart feel as light as the scouting balloons the Garrison puts out to verify flying conditions.

They dig into their burgers.  Keith closes his eyes as he chews, the rich, salty taste of real beef, real cheese, and real tomato overwhelming his senses.  He doesn’t realize he’s made a small noise of pleasure until his eyes open, and he sees Shiro watching him with an amused quirk of his brow.

“Enjoying it?”

Keith rolls his eyes, and Shiro laughs.  Keith wishes he had a way to record it, to keep this part of Shiro with him at all times.  Shiro, who takes his piloting so seriously, who’d burden himself with the whole of the Earth’s problems if he knew of a way to do so.  Shiro, who’s idolized by all of the younger cadets, who somehow, for some reason, decided that Keith was special enough to take under his wing.

“I heard about your mission,” Keith says.  It’s difficult to watch the sparkle of mirth fade a little from Shiro’s eyes as he processes Keith’s words.  

“Who told you?”  He’s frowning.

Keith swallows the nerves suddenly building up in his throat.  “Commander Iverson mentioned it earlier today.  I was doing the flight simulator, and afterwards Iverson said I might be able to follow in your footsteps, and get assigned to an important mission like yours.”

Shiro picks up a fry, twists his mouth thoughtfully.  “Yeah,” he sighs.  “I guess it _is_ important.”

“How long will you be gone?”

He doesn’t look like he wants to be talking about this on their night away from the Garrison.  “A year,” he says.  “Probably more.”

Keith nods.  By then, he’ll probably have graduated, and who knows what far-off mission he’ll be assigned before Shiro gets back.  

“Why are you asking?” Shiro asks.  His smile is stiff, like it’s been forced.  “Are you going to miss me, or something?”

Keith scoffs.  “Yeah, like I’ll miss getting my ass handed to me in the gym every week.”

They go quiet, the snarky attempt at humor not enough to put either of them at ease.  Around them, the restaurant continues to bustle as people talk with their friends, their dates, their families.  It’s all background noise to the thoughts in Keith’s head.

“We’ll see each other again, after I get back,” Shiro’s saying, and when Keith meets his eyes, he’s looking at him with an intensity he’s only ever seen in the gym, when they’re going at each other in a spar.  “I promise.”

Keith nods, once, and takes a sip of his sugary soft drink.  His insides are no less uneasy, but as Shiro gives him a smile that’s a little shy and a little uncertain, a smile that Keith is pretty sure no one else but a select few have been privileged to see, he knows with a certainty that’s bone-deep that Shiro can be trusted on this.  

He’ll be back.  He promised.


	2. 4:32 PM, the Dorasal Galaxy, D-29 since rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know they can't actually tell time very well in the Castle of Lions, but I figured I'd keep the theme going, anyway. Maybe one of them has a watch that still works!

“Give me a hand?”

Shiro’s smile is hopeful as he teeters under the weight of the practice gear in his arms.  The circuits in the training deck’s control room had gone out, so the paladins had been forced to make due with a bunch of odd practice weapons Coran had found in storage.  None of them had really been able to make much sense of them, though, and today’s practice had gone about as well as their first few had, when they’d just begun training.  There had been an accident, too; Hunk and Lance had collided at one point, and both were in the infirmary now, at the mercy of Coran and Allura’s limited human medical knowledge.

“I hope you’re not trying to make a joke about your robotic arm,” Keith says, taking a weapon whose name he wouldn’t be able to repeat out of the jumble in Shiro’s arms.  “Because you should really leave the joking to Hunk and Lance.”

Shiro’s face twists with amusement.  “I wasn’t trying to make a joke, but now that you’ve pointed it out…”  He looks down at the metal poking out from his shirtsleeve.  “I see it.”

Keith doesn’t want to laugh, but the slightly befuddled expression on Shiro’s face is worthy of taking a photograph.  

As they finish picking up, Keith finds his gaze drawn again to Shiro’s arm.  As much of a shock as it had been when he’d first seen it, it’s slowly begun to seem more and more an integral part of Shiro, rather than a hideous alien addition.  Watching Shiro practice with it, his movements sharp, clean, and deadly, one would think he’d had it much longer than a year.

“Does it feel weird?” Keith asks.  He gestures to it lamely when Shiro only stares.  “Your arm.”

Shiro’s gaze shifts to the complicated machine.  He flexes his fingers, makes a loose fist.  “Not really,” he finally says.  “Only when I stop to think about it, but even then, moving it feels as natural as moving my other arm.”  He doesn’t look fully at ease, though, as if he still hasn’t quite reconciled himself with the fact of its being part of his body.

And Keith - he knows he isn’t the best with people.  That’s Allura’s job, and Hunk’s, too, probably.  Keith is the muscle; he isn’t… sensitive. 

But he has to try.  “I - I’m sorry for asking,” he says.  “I guess I should’ve realized - ”

Shiro puts a reassuring hand - his natural hand - on Keith’s shoulder.  “It’s okay, Keith,” he says.  “It’s normal to be curious.”

“Do you remember getting it?”

Shiro’s brows come together, and his eyes grow distant.  “No, I don’t.”  He removes his hand, and Keith feels its loss more sharply than he should.  “I don’t know if I want to.”

“Hey…”  Keith starts to reach a hand out himself, but he stops midway.  “I’m sorry,” he says again.  He curses himself for being so clumsy with his words.  “I’ll just…”  He gestures to the door.  “I’ll get out of here.”

“Wait.”

Keith stops.

Shiro comes over to him, a few steps across the padded floor.  Carefully, his robotic hand reaches for one of Keith’s.

The smooth metal - Keith doesn’t know what kind of metal it is; he distantly remembers Hunk rambling about elements not found on Earth - is surprisingly warm.  Not hot, but it doesn’t shock Keith’s skin like the cool walls of the Castle do.  Their fingers lace together, and Keith realizes that it’s actually very close to his own body temperature.

“This…”  The robotic thumb - Shiro’s thumb, Keith reminds himself - rubs the side of Keith’s hand.  “It feels almost normal.  Almost.”

“What’s different?” Keith asks.  He’s afraid to move, afraid that he might break whatever spell has fallen over them if he does.

The hand slides against Keith’s palm to run itself up his arm, stopping just under the hem of his shirt sleeve.  “I can feel your temperature, and the pressure of my hand on your arm,” he says.  “But…”  He grabs Keith’s other hand with his natural hand.  “I don’t feel your skin properly.  The metal doesn’t react to you the way my own skin does.”

They’re standing very close now, their foreheads almost touching.  Keith isn’t sure he remembers how to breathe as Shiro’s robotic hand slides back down his arm, so both of his hands are around Keith’s.  

“It doesn’t feel the same,” he murmurs, squeezing Keith’s hands at the same time, slowly, gently.  “But it still feels nice, holding your hands like this.” Keith senses, more than sees the ghost of a smile flitting across Shiro’s lips.  “I missed this.”

Keith has to swallow the lump forming in his throat.  “I missed this, too,” he admits. 

“I - I know I’m not, you know, the same as I was - ”

Keith shakes his head, squeezes the robotic hand.  It’s grown warmer the longer he holds it, as if absorbing his body heat.  “You’re still you,” he says.  “You never stopped being you.”

They both look up when voices begin to echo in the halls.  Shiro takes a step back, and Keith finds that he can breathe again.  He has just enough time to regain his composure before Lance and Hunk are back in the room, regaling Shiro with stories from the infirmary.  Keith backs away from the three of them, not in the mood to entertain them and their silly quips.  

“Where are you going?” Lance asks, his face stuck in a grin.  “Hunk and I are getting to the best part!”

“I’ll… pass,” Keith says.  “I’m gonna check on Pidge in the lab.  She mentioned modifying my bayard somehow, to make it better.”

Lance is already turning back to Shiro as he says, “Alright, suit yourself.”

He pauses to look back when he reaches the doorway, and he finds Shiro watching him, his expression difficult to decipher.  Keith’s mouth twitches with a smile.  He raises a hand to wave a quick goodbye, and as he does so he can feel the ghost of metal against his skin, smooth and strangely comfortable.  And if it causes his heart to skip a beat for a split second, well, he’ll just keep that to himself for the time being.


	3. 8:13 on a Sunday night, D-112 until departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely longer than a vignette is supposed to be, but I got a little carried away. I hope you enjoy it!

“Wait right there, don’t move!"

Keith stays where he is in the hallway, feeling out of place in his jeans and T-shirt as the other cadets walk around in uniform.  It’s a rare night off for him, and Shiro had been adamant that they do something fun.

Shiro’s door opens back up then, revealing dark washed jeans, a dark jacket, and, a little surprisingly, because Shiro is always so serious about presenting a professional image - a purple T-shirt featuring a band Keith has never heard of.  

“You ready?” he’s asking. He has a backpack slung over his shoulder, and he’s twirling a key of some sort around one of his fingers.  

Keith takes it all in, a little taken aback by this relaxed, energetic, off-duty version of Shiro in front of him.  “Yeah,” he says.  “I guess.”

“Come on, then.”  Shiro drops an arm over Keith’s narrow shoulders and begins steering him down the hall.  

Keith gets a flutter of nerves in his stomach as they go on their way.  The other cadets watch them with jealousy, with looks that ask,  _ What’s Keith doing in civilian clothes with Shiro? How’d  _ that _ happen? _  All of it makes Shiro’s arm heavier than it should be.

And he knows that everyone looks up to Shiro;  _ he _ looks up to Shiro, thinks he’s one of the best pilots the Garrison has ever trained.  He’s hoped, along with everyone else, to get assigned to one of Shiro’s day expeditions into the desert, to get a glimpse of the guy at the helm of one of the Garrison’s practice vessels, to have a single moment of distant eye contact that proves that Takashi Shirogane is aware of your existence.  

So it had been a bit of a shock when Shiro had started talking to him a few weeks ago - Keith eating alone in the Commissary, Shiro setting his tray down across from him, a question about simulator scores on his lips and a smile in his eye.  After that had come the invitations to spar, the helpful flying tips, the hands on Keith’s shoulder, and the weird, uneasy feelings Keith gets every time Shiro enters his field of vision.  He tells himself it’s nothing more than hero-worship; he’s excited to have someone like Shiro notice a nobody orphan like him. But even now, the weight of Shiro’s arm on him shouldn’t be this overwhelming.

A thin, olive-skinned cadet glares at Keith as he and Shiro walk past him - Keith thinks he recognizes him as someone from his class, but they’re rounding a corner before he can look closely enough.  

“Are you alright?” Shiro asks.  They’re approaching one of the Garrison’s many garages, and Keith is struggling to figure out what Shiro has planned for them. 

“I’m fine,” he says.  “Where are we going?”

The glint in Shiro’s eye hits Keith like a too-fast takeoff.  “Ever flown in a speeder before?”

Keith shakes his head, though his heart rate picks up a bit at the mention of flying.

Shiro throws the cover off a beautiful red and white machine, with lean, elegant lines, its twin hover turbines just kissing the ground as it sits, waiting for its next pilot.  

“Whoa,” Keith breathes.  He reaches out without thinking, and a shiver runs down his spine as he carefully slides a hand along its side.

“Professor Montgomery wanted to see what I could do with close-terrain flying, so I’ve been practicing with this thing for the last few days,” Shiro explains.

Keith looks up at him from where he’s crouching by one of the rear thrusters.  “Does she know you’re showing me now?” he asks.

Shiro shrugs, and for the first time, he looks a little guilty.  “Not necessarily,” he hedges.

That makes Keith smile.  “Can I take it for a spin?”

“If you don’t mind me tagging along.”

“I wouldn’t just  _ leave _ you here.”

Shiro smiles, and tosses him the key.  They clamber onto the seat, Shiro’s arms wrapping around Keith’s torso as he starts the engine.  

“Okay, you have to be careful on the startup, the accelerator can get kind of finicky - ” Shiro’s speech dissolves into a yell as Keith takes off.  They’ve barely made it through the garage’s opening doors before Keith punches the gas, flying across the dusty sand with his heart on fire.

It’s the one thing that makes sense in Keith’s life; it feels as natural as breathing.  Everything else - his written scores, his threadbare life, his confusing feelings for Shiro - he can leave it all behind, and nothing is left but the earth and the sky and the wind in Keith’s hair.  And in this speeder, with Shiro holding on for dear life behind him, Keith is ready to soar into the night, to leave the Garrison behind, to go somewhere new, maybe even leave the planet.

But this speeder isn’t equipped for space travel, so he settles instead for taking a gut-wrenching turn around an outcrop of rock that makes Shiro squeeze him tighter than ever.

“Keith!” The wind carries most of Shiro’s voice away from them, but Keith can still hear the excitement thrumming underneath the caution.  “Slow down!”

“Not yet!”  He swoops into the canyon with an ecstatic cry.  He doesn’t know if this model of speeder can actually take the landing, but he feels the engine thrumming underneath him, can almost hear it speaking to him over the roar of the wind.  

It ends up rougher than expected, but Keith manages to smooth it out quickly enough.  Then they’re hurtling through the valley, weaving a complicated pattern through cacti and boulders.  Keith even makes a few jumps over the river, which have Shiro shouting warnings about this being a Garrison vessel, that they’re out here without strict Garrison permission, and he has to be careful.  But Keith only kind of pays attention.  He’s sighted a rock formation that leads out of the canyon with a relatively gentle slope - that is, compared to the canyon’s vertical walls.  He gives the throttle a sharp twist, and they’re racing towards it, a  _ whoop _ of delight tearing itself out of Keith’s throat.

Shiro lets out a  _ whoop _ , too, though his arms are practically crushing Keith’s chest as they shoot up the wall.  The speeder shakes a little, its thrusters fighting the pull of gravity, but Keith eggs it on.  He’s murmuring to the thing, coaxing it up, and up, and up…

He cries out in triumph as they careen back into the open desert.  They actually  _ fly _ through the air for a few seconds before the hover turbines regain their grip on the terrain, and then they’re speeding across the sand again, weaving in and out of plants and rocks - Keith has to dodge a stray coyote at one point, and Shiro pokes his elbow into Keith’s side to remind him to reign himself in.

He finally comes to a stop on top of a tall cliff, where they can see the stars beginning to come out of hiding in the purple twilit sky. Shiro stumbles a few steps when he dismounts, but Keith’s heart is pounding, and he feels alive, electric, and -  _ happy _ .

“You know,” Shiro says as he pulls a water bottle and a flashlight out of his backpack.  “When I said you could fly this, I hadn’t actually meant  _ fly _ .”

Keith can’t keep the smile off of his face.  “I know, but - ”  He breathes in the night air, faintly tinged by the speeder’s exhaust.  “I’ve been trapped in that simulator for too long.”

“Iverson has no clue what he’s getting himself into with you,” Shiro laughs.

“It’s just - it’s so different from the real thing, I don’t feel like I’m  _ learning _ \- ”

“Okay,” Shiro says.  He’s taking something else out of his backpack now.  “I didn’t let you fly me out here so I could listen to you complain about cadet training for the hundredth time.”  He offers Keith something wrapped in paper.  “Sandwich?”

It’s ham and cheese, and Keith tears into it, not realizing how much of an appetite he’d worked up on the speeder.  

“I hadn’t meant for us to be out so late, either,” Shiro adds, looking up at the darkening sky.  “Will you know how to get back?”

Keith shrugs.  “Probably.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Keith laughs.  “I’ll have you home before your curfew, don’t worry.”

_ That _ gets him a halfhearted shove.  “It’s  _ you _ with the curfew,  _ Cadet _ ,” Shiro says.

Keith leans back on his hands and tilts his head back to contemplate the stars above him.  “You think I’ll make it up there someday?”

“Galaxy Garrison exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite astroexplorers,” Shiro recites.  His voice is deadpan, and muffled by the food in his mouth, which causes the invigorating line to fall flat.  It makes Keith choke on his water.

“How often do you have to say that?” he asks, wiping his mouth.

“Whenever I take a little crew out for field training.”  Shiro looks like he’s trying not to laugh, too.  “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know,” Keith laughs.  “You, probably.”

“ _ Me _ ?”

He can’t stop smiling.  “You’re just funny, sometimes.”

Shiro looks away, and in the fast-fading light, he may or may not be blushing a little. The thought of that makes Keith feel flushed, too.  He turns his attention to the desert below them, the sand painted purple, the fading sunlight glowing golden behind the distant mountains. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Shiro asks.

Keith looks back at him, catches his eye.  “It is.”

The space between them suddenly feels too big; Keith’s hand itches to take Shiro’s - to feel the warm weight of Shiro’s palm, the slide of his fingers, the press of his thumb on top of Keith’s. A chill nighttime breeze ruffles Keith’s hair, raising goosebumps on the back of his neck, and Keith begins to wonder how Shiro’s shoulder might feel under his head.  They’re all alone out here, together on the clifftop, the only witness to their being here the stars above them and the sand beneath them. The significance of it all makes it hard for Keith to breathe.

But.

He remains where he is.  He eats the second sandwich Shiro gives him and watches the last dredges of sunlight fade from the horizon. 

“Do you ever…”  He sighs, the longing in his chest he wants to convey tangling up his tongue.  

Shiro waits, patiently.  “Yeah?”

The desert’s faded to plum, the horizon giving off its last gasp of orange before capitulating to the darkness.  It’s an empty landscape, but as the stars convene, the Milky Way stretching lazily over the mountains, Keith feels a tug in his chest, like someone’s calling his name from a far-off planet.

He tries again.  “Do you ever, just, feel like you’re not where you’re supposed to be?” he asks.  It isn’t want he  _ wants _ to ask, but it’s the closest he can get.

Shiro frowns.  “What do you mean?”

Keith shakes his head.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know what I was trying to ask.”

He jerks forward when Shiro claps a hand on his back.  “It’s okay,” he says.  “You’ve got time to figure that stuff out at your own pace.”

“But do you?” Keith asks.  He has to look up as Shiro stands beside him.  

“Do I what?”

“Feel like you might be in the wrong place?”

Shiro looks out at the vast space around them.  “I’m not sure,” he says.  “I’ve never really considered it, to be honest.”

Keith shrugs, and he stands up, too.  “Whatever,” he says. “It’s fine.”

Shiro claps another hand on his shoulder.  “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

Keith thinks about the itch he’d had to hold Shiro’s hand.  “I know.”

“Are you finished with your sandwich?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah.”  Keith watches him move past him to the speeder, where he begins to repack his things.  “Are we going back?”

“I don’t want to be gone with the speeder for too long,” he says, and he gives Keith an apologetic smile.  “I know how much fun you had on it.”

“You can only break the rules so much, huh?” Keith teases.  

Shiro stands up, his backpack back on his shoulders.  “See if I bring you for another joyride again.”

“Wait!”  Keith scrambles up.  “I’m flying us back, right?”

Shiro’s already sitting on the back half of the speeder’s seat.  “I never asked for the key back, did I?”

Keith grins.  


	4. Time unknown, D-86 since rescue

“What is that?”

Keith looks down at his hands.  “I don’t actually know,” he says.  “I found it in the house I was living in, in one of the closets.”

“In the desert?”  Shiro’s inspecting the thing Keith’s holding, his eyebrows knitted together.  “Why does it say ‘K’s Awesome Mixtape Volume 1’?  Is it yours?”

“No,” Keith says.  “That’s why it’s so weird.  It’s from before the Garrison existed, I think.  I don’t know how to make it work.”

They continue to look at it, its plastic weird and rough, the paper label faded and peeling at the corners.  Keith pokes a finger into one of the holes in the middle, and the plastic gear teeth bite into his skin.  

“How do you have this with you?” Shiro asks.

Keith hesitates.  “I, uh, carried it around with me.  On Earth.  It was in my pocket when we got on the blue lion.”

“Why?”  Shiro doesn’t look like he thinks Keith is crazy, which is better than what he’d feared. 

And he shrugs, looking down at the tape again.  “It just… seemed lonely,” he says.  “And I could relate to that.”

Shiro’s eyes soften with compassion.  “Keith…”

“What are you guys looking at?” 

Keith tries not to scowl too much as Lance puts a casual arm over each of their shoulders, clumsily inserting himself into the middle of everything.  “What’s that?” 

“None of your business,” Keith snaps.

Lance leans away from him to get a better look at him.  “Grumpy today?” he teases.

“It’s a personal item,” Shiro tells him.  His voice is firm, but gentle.  “I don’t think Keith wants us all invading his privacy like this.”

“But what  _ is _ it?”

“What?”  Hunk is crowding in now, and Keith has to hold his tape close to his chest to keep his mechanic’s hands from taking it.  “Is that an old cassette tape?”  He almost gasps.  “I’ve never seen one in real life before!”

He tries to reach for it again, but Keith smacks his hand away.  “Don’t touch it!”

Hunk looks almost heartbroken.  “But - ”

“What’s a cassette tape?” Lance asks.

Hunk is suddenly excited again.  “Okay, so, way back when, before we had digital technology, people recorded things like music and speech on this magnetic plastic tape that could be played back with the right machine, and they even used these to store data for the first microcomputers with a special encoding process - ”

“English, please,” Lance says.

“It probably has music on it,” Hunk concludes, peering at it as closely as Keith will let him.  “Old music, too, by the looks of it.”

“Do you think you and Pidge could figure out a way for us to listen to it?” Shiro asks. When Keith shoots him a glare, he adds, “I mean, if that’s okay with you, Keith.”

Keith looks down at the tape in his hands.  It’s been one of his constant companions since Shiro disappeared and he dropped out, as familiar to him as the knife on his belt.  He’s been content so far letting it remain a mystery; in fact, that’s part of its familiarity, the security Keith feels when he runs his thumb over the thinning label, the red ink that spells out the first letter of his name. The idea of revealing what it contains scares Keith more than he might have imagined.

Lances gives him a nudge.  “Keith?”

“Fine,” he says.  

Pidge, like Hunk, is fascinated by the tape, but, unlike Hunk, she doesn’t reach for it without asking first.

“They used these for data storage on some of the first desktop computers,” she says. 

“See?” Hunk says.  “No one cared when  _ I _ said it.”

“Calm down,” Lance says.

Pidge starts typing away at one of her computers.  “I think if Hunk and I can build a machine to read the magnetic tape and transfer it to a digital file, we should be able to play whatever’s been recorded on here.”

Keith’s fingers itch to snatch the tape back as Pidge and Hunk bend their heads over it, inspecting its parts and materials.  

A hand lands on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Keith,” Lance says.  Keith tenses up.  “No harm will come to your weird relic of the past.  Or, it shouldn’t, at least.”

“Lance,” Keith says.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“It’ll be fine,” Shiro says.  His voice settles over Keith like a blanket.  “Pidge and Hunk are good at what they do.”

“I know,” Keith says.  He crosses his arms and leans against the lab’s wall.  

Lance drifts off to see just what, exactly, Hunk and Pidge are doing, and Shiro takes up a spot next to Keith.  “What you said earlier…” he says.  “Did you mean it?”

Keith frowns.  “What do you mean?”

“You - you said the tape seemed lonely.  And that you could relate.  Does that…”  Shiro’s beginning to look upset, and Keith wishes he would stop this train of thought.  “Does that have anything to do with me?  Or dropping out?”

Keith kicks the back of his foot against the wall impatiently.  “I don’t know,” he grumbles, reluctant to dig into this issue with the other three so close by.  “Maybe. Probably.”

“It does.”

“I didn’t have anyone at the Garrison,” Keith admits.  He’s keeping his voice low, and Shiro has to lean in a little to hear him.  “After we got news of your disappearance, it just didn’t seem worth it anymore.”

“Keith - ”

“It’s just a stupid cassette tape I found in my house, okay?” Keith snaps.  “I don’t know why I kept it around.  It just…”  He hates having to search for words like this.  “It just felt right, somehow.”

“Like searching the area where we found the blue lion felt right?” Shiro asks.

Keith shrugs.  “Yeah, I guess.”

Shiro’s giving him this searching look that makes Keith feel very on edge, but he’s granted a reprieve when Allura and Coran poke their heads in.

“What’s this?” Coran asks.  “All of our paladins are hidden away, like they’re working on a secret project.”

“It’s not secret,” Hunk says.

“Keith has an old cassette tape that Pidge and Hunk are trying to play,” Lance explains.

The two Alteans try to peer over Hunk’s shoulders, to see what they’re doing.  “That… looks very interesting,” Allura says.

“If you wanted to play something, you could’ve asked us,” Coran says.  “We’ve got over forty squidolacs’ worth of Altean music stored here in the Castle.”

“A squidolac?” Lance laughs.

Before Coran can explain the different units of Altean measurement, though, Pidge says, “I got it!”

“Play it!” Lance says.

The seven of them wait in a silence thick with anticipation as one of Pidge’s screens loads the information.  Keith clenches one of his hands into a fist, his stomach churning with something he can’t quite name - Nerves? Excitement? Dread?

Rough guitar suddenly begins to play, its rhythmic beat immediately catching everyone’s attention.  Another noise follows, and then a set of drums kicks in, and everyone looks around at one another, as if they’re not quite sure what to think.

It continues, a steady, thumping beat that has Keith’s foot beginning to tap on its own accord.

Then, a woman’s voice:

“ _ One way, or another, I'm gonna find ya _   
_ I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha _ ”

“I have to say, for something labelled ‘Awesome,’ I don’t think this is actually that awesome,” Lance says.  “For the record.”

But Keith ignores him, listening to the music he’s been holding onto for over a year.  He feels it around him, and in his head, and as the song enters its first chorus, he feels something click in his chest, too, and his breath catches.

“Keith?” Shiro’s looking at him.  “You okay?”

“Yeah.”  Keith feels a smile tugging on the corners of his lips.  “Yeah, I - I like it.”

Shiro’s concern melts away, morphs into a smile of his own.  “You do?”

A crescendo begins to build, and Keith can no longer keep his smile at bay.  “Yeah.”

Lance’s face is twisted up in disbelief.  “You like this?”

Allura’s face is thoughtful.  “Very interesting, and very different from our own music - don’t you agree, Coran?”

“Indubitably!” 

Pidge is smiling a small smile; Hunk is standing and stretching.

“Well, I’m out of here,” Lance says with a breezy sigh.  “This is disappointing.”

“I’m getting a snack,” Hunk announces.

Allura and Coran leave, too, leaving Keith, Shiro and Pidge left to listen to the songs change.  

Keith leaves his spot against the wall to approach Pidge.  “Is there a way I can listen to this on my own?”

“You mean like a portable player?”

“Something like that.”

Pidge chews her lip thoughtfully.  “Well… the files are already downloaded onto my computer, so the only thing we need is something to transfer them to, to give to you…  Can I get back to you on this?” she asks.

“Of course.”  The next song is just as energetic as the first, and it fills Keith with the desire to move, to do something immediate.  He realizes belatedly that he’s begun to bounce on the balls of his feet, and his hands are held in loose fists.  “Uh.  I think I’m going to hit the training deck,” he says.  “I’ll check in later.”

Pidge smiles knowingly.  “Have fun.”

He’s almost forgotten that Shiro is still there, and he’s taken aback when he turns around to find Shiro lingering close to the door.  “Need a sparring partner?” he asks, his smile similar to Pidge’s.  Keith wonders just when, exactly, they figured him out so completely.

“Sure,” he says.  “But only if you can keep up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the result of a totally self-indulgent headcanon sorta inspired by Peter Quill's tape in Guardians of the Galaxy. It's probably mostly because of the mullet, but for some reason I can't stop thinking about how Keith would appreciate some of the music from the 80s. So this happened!
> 
> The first song is 'One Way or Another,' by Blondie, and even though the next song is barely mentioned, it's 'Beat It' by Michael Jackson. 
> 
> (I've also thought a lot about Keith and classic rock from the 70s and more hard rock from the 80s, and also what Hunk, Lance and Pidge might like, but that's something to go into at another time!)


End file.
